


The First Birthday

by Ghostcat



Category: New Girl
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick screwed up, the place is in shambles. Oh, and there's a 99 cent store piñata. Must be his birthday. Takes place early season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to the person who anonymously requested a sexy fic centered around Nick's birthday. I tried but the fic had other ideas.
> 
> Takes place before Season 1's Thanksgiving.
> 
> Big thank you to [Kyra](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra) for her very last minute beta read. I've missed you. :)

In retrospect, he should’ve known what was happening.

Jess had kept asking him what time he’d be home that Wednesday, insisting he clear his schedule, not listening to him when he said he wanted to watch college basketball and get really, really drunk.

“You can do that after. Just DVR it.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “That’s not how you watch sports, Jessica. You watch it as it happens, any other way is cheating and _un-American_.”

“I’ll cook dinner. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t want to do… Wait. You’re making dinner?”

But that was the wrong question, the right one was “ _After_ what?”

“I’m in,” he’d said instead and went right back to drinking his fourth Heisler of the night.

She had told him, he knew that she had, but he had a tendency to zone her out. It was his way of keeping his distance.

The truth is, he found her cute as hell as well as maddening, a combination which made her dangerous. To stray too close was to find himself sitting on the couch listening to her talk about her childhood in Portland and that wasn’t him, he didn't care, about making snails race or the smell of rain, he wasn't about _that_. But there he’d be, listening, wondering what she looked like when she was ten _(what?)_ , if she was kind, if she'd had pets. Old Nick Miller, sitting there, holding her blue, orange, and white yarn between his fingers, wondering who the hell needed anything made of wool in L.A.? This girl, apparently.

He was always forgetting his birthday and now that it had a leading 3 in it, it was all but guaranteed that he'd be forgetting it real hard. Which is why it wasn’t until the fourth or fifth air kiss he’d gotten from a container-holding stranger that he'd realized that a) it was finally Wednesday, b) it wasn't dinner with Jess, c) it was a party with a whole bunch of people, d) it was _his_ birthday party and e) it was a potluck.

Surprise realizations had never been Nick's thing. They either filled him with rage or sent him into a panic or both. So it wasn't unexpected then, that somewhere between pretending that he was eating the three--as in three too many--mushroom casserole and having to listen to one of Jess’s long haired friend's skinny roommates (Lana? Rana? Fauna?) talk about some kind of music called PDM or BDM, Nick had just snapped--unleashing a high, plaintive screech and trying to run out of the room. Which, in practice, meant accidentally taking out the fourth leg on their makeshift buffet table, causing the whole thing to collapse, sending food flying everywhere.

Aaaand there might have been a three minute rant about potlucks and people and other things he would classify as awful. Buh bye, giant bowl of green bean salad. Hello, everyone hating him.

“Nick. You went WAY too far. Way too far.”

They were back in the relative safety of his bedroom. Winston pursed his lips and leveled him with his best bugged out eyes of _ya fucked up, you_. Nick sighed. He banged his head against the wall, right into his Jim Croce poster. At least Jimmy’s eyes were kind.

“I know.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I know. But Winnie, hear me out… this was seriously the worst. The worst! I just wanted to watch the game, get drunk, jerk off, then cry. I didn’t ask…”

“It’s your birthday, Nick. She WANTED to celebrate it. She did this for you. She thought it would make your grumpy ass day.”

Nick twitched in response, curling up his hands in to fists and barely, just barely restraining himself from sliding under the bed to get away from him. When Winnie got pissed enough to start angry-whispering, Nick always felt like his mom was yelling at him too. Like Winston had somehow internalized or was channeling her and they were both hush-bawling him out in twin disappointment.

Nick’s voice came out in whine, quieter than he’d meant and it sounded sickly and insincere to his own ears. “I didn't ask her to.”

“NICK. It. doesn't. matter. She doesn't know you like we do. She doesn't know what a miserable bastard you have become. A miserable bastard that sucks the joy out of life with his bitterness and his...”

“Come on, my man, no need to get personal.”

“Ever since Caroline, you have become a happiness vampire. Jess is a nice girl and she did something nice for you, on your birthday and you thank her by acting like a chump. Go to her room and apologize.”

“But I don’t think…”

“I don’t care how you do it. Just go. I like our set-up here. She’s clean, she pays her rent, and we share similar interests.”

Nick blinked three, four times. “ _What?_ ”

“GO.”

“Okay, I’ll go.”

“Go.”

“I’m going.”

Winston gave him a final glare and stormed off back to his room. Nick hung his head and walked out into the hall. He looked over at the living room and saw that all signs of the aborted dinner party were gone. Jess sat on the couch, a cup of tea in her hands, staring at the ground. The line of her shoulders indicated that she was tired. He had that icky, clammy feeling like you’re about to get your ass handed to you by your parents because they found your secret pack of menthols hidden under the freaky eight-sided table in the basement.

“Hey. Jess.”

“Hey.” Her voice sounded muffled and nasal, like she was talking under ten sweaters.

He stood near the couch, anxiously rubbing his knuckles as if he'd thrown a punch. “I’m sorry.”

“ _I’m_ sorry.” She looked up. Oh thank god. At least she wasn’t crying.

“I…” he started.

“No, me first.”

“Okay.”

“I didn't realize how much you hated potlucks. I just wanted you to have a nice birthday. I should have talked to you before doing anything. It was thoughtless. Which isn't me. I’m usually… full of thoughts.” She blew her nose. He hadn't noticed that she had a small packet of tissues in her hand. “Sorry. Allergies. This medicine is knocking me out.”

“Jess. You don't need to apologize. It was just... well, it was happening and I wasn't expecting it and there were all these people. I should’ve told you what was going on before freaking out. I  _hate_ birthdays. And making chit chat with strangers. And potlucks.”

“You hate them,” she repeated, no intonation in her voice.

“Yeah, I reeeeeeally hate ‘em. They make me crazy, like, genuinely crazy. I snapped." He shook his head, chastising himself. "And I'm sorry because you made all that food. With all those mushrooms. And made everything nice. With the doilies and the... is that a _piñata_?" He hadn't noticed it before, it was hanging over near the window, tilted forlornly on its side.

Jess shrugged.

"Anyway. I'm sorry. I’m really sorry. I'm a jerk.”

“It’s okay.”

“Look, I’m not sorry that I hate potlucks, I’m sorry that I made you sad. And that you did all that work. I’m not worth the effort, Jess. Just ask the guys, I’m not worth it.”

“What _do_ you want?”

“What’s that?” He tilted his head at her in confusion. Her face was open, bare. She'd washed her make-up off and she looked like a kid. It unsettled him.

“For your birthday. What do you want?”

Nick couldn't think of a single thing. He tried to summon up an image and all he could come up with was a mug in the shape of a boot. He wasn’t about to tell her that bit of stupid. He cleared his throat.

“Silence sounds good.” He laughed nervously and waited for her to laugh. She said nothing. Just blinked those big eyes at him. They looked too shiny. They made him fucking nervous, is what. “I don’t know... a triple decker triple meat sandwich?”

“What else?”

An image came to him suddenly. Hair and skin and fingers and blue, blue eyes with a ring of yellow and happy, not sad and what the hell. Why did his brain go there?

“Oh boy.” He felt uncomfortable for a second, and shifted from one foot to the other. She seemed to catch it, her eyes narrowed slightly.

“You thought of something.”

“I did.” He winced instantly, he hadn't meant to say that. He could feel a burst of flop sweat. He was flop sweat. Living, breathing, flop sweat. In man form. He barreled on ahead. “Something personal and stupid. That we’re not going to discuss.”

“I disagree.”

“Umm, well, yeah, you really don’t know what…”

“You are worth it.”

He didn't know what to say to that. He frowned.

“Don’t say otherwise.”

She walked over to him and gave him a little poke in the arm. “Happy birthday, Nick.” She handed him a small gift wrapped box that she fished out of the pocket of her jacket. Then she crossed her arms in front of herself, as if she was warding off the arctic winds, and walked back to her room, closing the door behind her with a click.

He stood there for a moment, then shuffled back to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed and unwrapped his gift, more carefully than he’d done anything in a long time. Corner piece, tape, fold, unfold. It was a plain brown box, he opened the lid. Inside was a pair of mittens: navy blue and white, with a big orange C. There was a note.

_For when you go home._

The wool was softer than he’d remembered. He slipped them on.


End file.
